Customer Reviews

Knowledge and Power in Morocco

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i have read many books about the middle east and north africa, but i have never read a book quite like this before. eickelman's anthropological account of a rural moroccan judge's life, while it is an interesting idea, wasn't carried out well. he focused mainly on the fact that he (eickelman) translated lots of documents and where the judge studied. i got several chapters in before i even found a real theme to the book, he rarely stayed on topic. if you are reading this for class, warning that you may be bored. i recommend looking elsewhere to find your information on the morocco and the life of its people because this book gave me nothing.

Eickelman took a fascinating approach to writing this ethnography which makes this work not only a profound narration of the transformation of a facet of Moroccan society in the modern period but also a personal and engaging story. As such, it defies and even transcends the traditional hierarchy and divisions between the ethnographer and the subject of ethnographic observation/interrogation. He does this by focusing on the life of and his encounters with the elderly Qadi of Bzu, with whom he develops a increasingly friendly and intimate relationship.

Beyond its intrepid methodology, Eickelman's picture of the order and system of the traditional reproduction of Islamic knowledge and its transformation in the modern period, stereotypical said to be a movement from chaos to order, has proved to be largely influential in other famous social histories-especially, for example, in the work of Mitchell and Messick.